Mira Road: 12-year-old commits suicide for not being allowed to step out in lockdown
by Mumbai Mirror(This story was first published in Navbharat Times on May 30, 2020)
By Amit Tiwari
Mumbai: In a shocking incident, a 12-year-old boy from Mira Road killed himself after he wasn't allowed to step outside the house owing to the coronavirus scare and lockdown.
Salim (name changed), a class 6 student, celebrated Eid on May 25 and slept around 1.30 at night in his room. At around 7 am the next day, when his parents went to check on him, they saw him hanging from the ceiling fan. He was immediately rushed to a nearby hospital where doctors declared him dead on arrival.
Click here for latest updates on the coronavirus pandemic
The father said, "Our son used to go cycling and playing in the park every evening before the lockdown. He insisted on going out in the initial phase of the lockdown but agreed to stay indoors after we turned down his requests several times. Before killing himself, he had spoken to a friend on WhatsApp about being bored in the house. We had absolutely no feeling that he was so depressed for not being able to go outside, otherwise, we would have taken him out to play ourselves."
The boy's class teacher said that he was a very active child in school as well and was even the monitor of his class.
Meanwhile, the metropolitan satellite town of Mira Bhayandar reported 28 fresh cases of coronavirus on Thursday taking the total number in the region to 605. Also, 20 people have succumbed to the virus so far. Out of the 28 cases, 17 were reported in Mira Road itself.